LEGO™ compatible modular electronics

Crazy Circuits Touch Board

A single Touch Board packaged with alligator clips and a USB cable. Comes with a coupon code for 10$ off your first Crazy Circuits purchase at CrazyCircuits.com.

In Stock

Free US Shipping / $10 Worldwide

$95

Squishy Circuits™ Kit

A Touch Board packaged with Squishy Circuits™ conductive dough, and 6 Crazy Circuits Chips. Sculpt your circuits into squishy switches or add lights and sound to your creations. Comes with a coupon code for 10$ off your first Crazy Circuits purchase at CrazyCircuits.com.

In Stock

Free US Shipping / $10 Worldwide

$95

Conductive Paint Kit

A Touch Board packaged with Bare™ conductive paint, and 6 Crazy Circuits Chips. Make your own touch sensors and variable resistors to enhance your projects. Comes with a coupon code for 10$ off your first Crazy Circuits purchase at CrazyCircuits.com.

In Stock

Free US Shipping / $10 Worldwide

$95

NES Controller Kit

This Touch Board comes with 6 pushbutton switches and a LEGO™ baseplate so you can play your emulated games with style.

In Stock

Free US Shipping / $10 Worldwide

$95

Sewing Deluxe Kit

Enhance your soft circuits and e-textiles with a Touch Board and 14 Crazy Circuits Chips. Light things up, make some noise, and get creative. Coupon code for 10$ off your next Crazy Circuits purchase at CrazyCircuits.com.

In Stock

Free US Shipping / $10 Worldwide

$200

Crazy Circuits Deluxe Kit

This Kit contains all the different shapes and sizes of Crazy Circuits Chips, including switches, LEDs, speakers and connectors. It also features our pre-programmed Blink/Fade board, for controlling LEDs without programming. Coupon code for 10$ off your next Crazy Circuits purchase at CrazyCircuits.com.

In Stock

Free US Shipping / $10 Worldwide

$1,000

Makerspace Kit

This set provides you with all the Crazy Circuits you need to fully stock your home or makerspace. It also features our Robotics Board with Standard and Continuous Rotation Servos to get your projects moving. Coupon code for 10$ off your next Crazy Circuits purchase at CrazyCircuits.com.

Recent Updates

Crazy Circuits is a non-soldering electronic learning platform that allows people to create circuits from almost any material they can imagine. Crazy Circuits are designed to pop onto LEGO™ bricks, enabling your creations to light up, move, and make noise. Use Crazy Circuits to construct paper crafts with conductive tape, use conductive thread for sewing, sculpt with conductive dough, and create art with conductive inks and paints. You can even upload Arduino sketches to the Crazy Circuits Touch Board. No matter what you make, Crazy Circuits brings it all together.

Crazy Circuits works on LEGO™, paper, fabric, and tons of other materials.

What does it do?

We designed Crazy Circuits to interface with all kinds of systems and materials that are already in your home, classroom, or makerspace. Start with simple circuits comprised of a battery and LED, then add switches, buttons, and programming boards to integrate sound, motion, and interactive elements. The real fun comes when you combine Crazy Circuits with your own creativity. Make a light up t-shirt, a singing greeting card, or a treat dispensing robot; the only limit is your own imagination.

At the heart of our most exciting projects is the Crazy Circuits Touch Board. The Touch Board is built around a Teensy LC microcontroller and features capacitive touch inputs. Any conductive material, from a cup of water to a potato can be turned into a touch sensor, no grounding necessary. We’ve made light up T-shirts, a conductive paint piano, a music visualizer, and we’ve got lots more ideas on the way. We can’t wait to see what you create!

Who is it for?

Crazy Circuits is a great tool for anyone trying to get into circuit design and basic programming. From a kid making paper crafts, to an engineer building LEGO™ robots, Crazy Circuits has something for everyone. If you promise not to swallow anything, Crazy Circuits is for you!

Features and Functions

Endless Compatibility

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. That’s why Crazy Circuits is designed to be compatible with all kinds of systems and materials that you already have on the shelf. If you’ve got a LEGO™ collection, you’re already most of the way to an ambulance with flashing lights or a rocket with glowing engines.

Our programming boards are Arduino based so even novices have an easy time getting started. All you need is a computer (Mac, PC, or Linux) with a USB port. You can copy our code, edit it, write your own, or borrow from the hundreds of Arduino projects already shared online.

The Crazy Circuits Touch Board can also be used as a USB keyboard. This functionality is great for creating game controllers or buttons that launch apps or execute keyboard shortcuts such as “copy” and “paste” commands.

Crazy Circuits is compatible with any conductive material you care to connect to. Some of our favorites include our nylon conductive tape, Squishy Circuits™ dough, Bare Conductive Electric Paint, and conductive thread, but you can use anything you like. Paper clips, aluminum foil, and even pipe cleaners make great wires and touch pads for Crazy Circuits.

Color Coordination

Despite Josh’s inability to differentiate red and green, each type of Crazy Circuits Chip is a different color depending on what it does.

Color

Function

Example

Black

Output

LEDs and piezo speakers

Red

Input

buttons and switches

Orange

Power

battery holders

Green

Integrated Circuits

Touch Board, Robotics Board, Blink/Fade Board

Purple

Connectors

terminal blocks and pin headers

Open Source

Crazy Circuits is available for free as open source hardware and software. Our GitHub repository contains information for dozens of parts, complete with gerbr files and DigiKey part numbers. If you want to make or order your own Crazy Circuits, you can, even the parts we aren’t manufacturing yet.

We want to support the same maker communities that give us ideas and inspiration for our own projects. We will always provide our code, instructions, and other project files for free on the GitHub. This includes everything from Arduino code for the Bare Conductive Paint Piano to the laser cutting files for the wooden NES Controller. Follow us on social media and check back often for new projects!

Create Your Own

In the Development section of our GitHub repository you will find guidelines for creating new Crazy Circuits parts, as well a KiCAD library and template. These are intended to help you make any component you want into a Crazy Circuits Chip.

Technical Specs

The guiding factor in Crazy Circuits’ design is their compatibility with LEGO™ bricks. Through prototyping we determined that a hole diameter of 4.98mm works best with the 4.80mm LEGO™ studs. This size allows for slight variations in manufacturing due to the somewhat loose fit, and gives a tight connection when used with our conductive nylon tape. Crazy Circuits are Lead Free/ROHS Compliant.

Crazy Circuits Touch Board

The Touch Board measures 5x10 “LEGO™ studs” or about 4x8 cm. At the center sits a TeensyLC microcontroller, which allows the Touch Board to function as a USB Keyboard and enables capacitive touch sensing, without the need for a grounding wire.

20 Input/Output pins

20 Digital Pins

11 Touch Pins

8 Analog Pins

8 PWM Pins

Two each of Ground, VIN, and 3.3V pins

Nylon Conductive Tape

Most conductive tapes on the market are composed of coper or aluminum foil ribbon with an adhesive backing. While inexpensive, these materials tear easily and made a mess when we attempted to remove them from LEGO™ bricks. To solve this issue we have sourced a nylon based tape manufactured with nickel and copper resulting in a very strong, and highly conductive tape.

Extra strength nylon tape with nickel and copper

⅛ or ¼ inch width

1 Ohm resistance per foot

Tear resistant

5 meter rolls

Conductive Thread

Steel nylon thread

Five Meter Rolls

15 Ohms resistance per foot

5 meter rolls

Comparisons

Crazy Circuits

Circuit Stickers

Makey Makey

Little Bits

SAM Labs

Cost of Parts

Surface Mount LED

$1.00

$1.00

N/A

$8.00

N/A

RGB LED

$3.50

N/A

N/A

$10.00

$31.00

Pushbutton Switch

$2.00

N/A

N/A

$8.00

$31.00

Connectors ($/foot)

$0.38

$0.50

$0.95

$12.75

N/A

Programmable Board

$40.00

$30.00

$50.00

$40.00

N/A

Features

Input/Output Pins

24

6

18

6

N/A

Reusable Parts

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Capacitive Touch

Yes

No

No

No

No

Compatable With…

LEGO(TM)

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

Conductive Tape

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Conductive Paint

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Conductive Thread

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Arduino

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Made in the USA

Producing custom parts designed to fit onto LEGO™ bricks requires a high level of quality and precision. To ensure that Crazy Circuits boards meet these standards, we’re having them made right here in America.

Risks & Challenges

We have done our best to reduce risks to our backers.

Funding:

We ran a successful Kickstarter earlier this year and raised sufficient funds to manufacture the parts we need. Our initial goal was to develop a subscription box model for Crazy Circuits, but our backers were most interested in the Crazy Circuits Touch Board. We created this campaign with the many specialized Touch Board kits as a respons to that feedback. We are very excited to get Crazy Circuits out into the world and see what people do with it!

Manufacturing:

Over the past year we have built numerous prototypes on all the Crazy Circuits Chips and we are pleased with the results. Manufacturing Crazy Circuits in the United States, just a few hours drive from our office, helps us mitigate potential errors due to miscommunication and makes it easy and affordable for us to conduct quality control. We have already placed orders for our circuit boards and for electronic parts, and some items have already arrived at our warehouse. We are on schedule to deliver to our Kickstarter backers in September, and we plan to fulfil our Crowd Supply orders the same month.

About the Team

The Brown Dog Gadgets team is lead by Joshua Zimmerman, a former teacher turned small business owner. In the hunt for quality science activities for his classroom, Josh began creating his own projects to fit his budget. Posting these early projects to sites like Instructables uncovered a niche for simple, inexpensive projects in both the home and education markets. Josh left his teaching job in 2013 to run Brown Dog Gadgets full time. In the last few years the business has grown to include an expanded product line, five employees, several specialized contractors, and two office dogs.

Pledge Levels

This table details exactly what comes in the box when you order at each pledge level.

Here at Brown Dog Gadgets we've created kits and projects for creators of all ages. Follow our step by step directions or get inspired to make your own creations. All at a price that doesn't break your budget.